Joan Crawford Wins Best Actress For Mildred Pierce | 1946

I don't think the public knows what that Oscar means to us it is one of the most emotional things that can ever happen to a human being while working on this video I asked my friends what's the first thing you think about when you think about Joan Crawford no joke the number one answer was eyebrows which I have to admit I was a little surprised by but I guess she does have great eyebrows so fair but besides eyebrows though I got exactly what I expected it's easy to reduce Joan Crawford's impact on entertainment when this and this are the most recent representations of her persona I get a kick out of this stuff as much as the next person but can't be exploitation unsurprisingly doesn't give the fullest depiction of her work or legacy especially when you realize that for a long time audiences thought of her like this we end up losing a lot of what actually made her career interesting a long journey and a lot of hard work took Joan from silent extra to Academy award-winner in 1946 in this video we'll talk about what made Joan popular in the first place her relationship with MGM and why her Oscar win is a comeback story for the ages Joan Crawford signed her first contract with MGM in 1924 and through a series of small roles she progressed from complete anonymity to a promising prospect eventually sharing the screen with silent legends like lon Cheney and John Gilbert when it became clear she could survive the transition to sound films in the late 1920s MGM gave Joan more and better opportunities eventually elevating her to a romantic lead soon enough she was one of the most bankable highest-paid stars in the lot understanding why Joan took off in the 1930s had some much-needed nuance to her characterization as a Hollywood icon and it's crucial to understand how Mildred Pierce was received later on the bulk of her years at MGM which arguably constituted the height or Atlee a peak of her fame occurred during the Great Depression it's difficult to comprehend how deeply disruptive the Depression was how thoroughly it up and did American society movies became an escape and although attendance dropped as fewer people could afford tickets the people who did go wanted to see something different from the grim reality of American life in the 30s and they definitely got that movies about the idle rich were more common than not and many stars could fully sustain their personas simply by wearing expensive gowns and furs but Joan was slightly different she had a guiding principle when it came to choosing roles yeah I try to get a film that has audience identification in the 1920s audience identification looked like a flapper in the 30s Jones movies told Cinderella stories about the working class her characters began for example in a kitchen or at a factory and through grit and force of will they ascended into that glamorous upper echelon to audiences who lived with the Great Depression she embodied the escapist fantasy version of what was possible for them movie magazines highlighted that Jones real life also echoed this journey she once said quote people know how hard I had it when I was young how I went to work when I was nine they know how close I feel to them end quote in the words of Jeanine Basinger audiences quote formed an allegiance to her determined climb to her attempt to be something other than what she really was an ambitious woman and an angry woman end quote eventually though times changed and the roles became stale in the late 30s MGM shoved her into roles that demanded little more from her than wearing a nice dress or felt like poorly done replicas of her past work in 1938 she along with Garbo Hepburn and others were infamously named box-office poison part of this was because of MGM which was actively shifting its resources toward its crop of newer younger stars like Judy Garland and Turner of particular concern to Joan was the 1939 arrival of greer garson who was closest to her in age MGM seemed keen to provide greer with prestige dramas to fuel her popularity so by 1943 she was a four-time nominee and an Academy Award winner and Joan hadn't even been nominated with the exception of the women she felt like she wasn't getting anything worth her time MGM was equally dissatisfied unsure of Joan's role in their new stable of stars and losing money on her films for the first time so as the story goes Joan and MGM mutually terminated her contract in 1943 this was absolutely a pivotal moment for Joan there was no guarantee that she was making the right decision considering she was a woman pushing 40 who just cut ties from her home of almost 20 years her situation exposed a harsh reality about Hollywood and again an opportunity to understand her role in its history every star interacted with the studio system in a different way Betty Davis challenged it Barbara Stanwyck subverted it Katharine Hepburn overcame it Joan Crawford embraced it Joan was an intensely ambitious and professional woman even Betty Davis would admit to that but I will say this for Miss Crawford she is a professional she is always on time she knows her life and we made Jane you know in three weeks Joan and I I had great respect for her as a professional that she is to her success came through compliance I'm not saying she wasn't disagreeable at times or that she didn't have her quirks what I'm saying is she was a really hard worker who wanted to be great at her job and who did what she was told she knew her reputation depended on being professional so contrary to some things you may have seen she was quite cooperative with MGM and played ball to succeed take how she maneuvered in relation to Greer Garson when MGM pulled Greer out of Susan and God to put her in the more prestigious Pride and Prejudice Joan accepted MGM's request for her to step in even if she knew it wasn't the right role for her she also showed up happily for when ladies meet a film which makes it very clear who MGM liked better and is also very fascinating so watch that if you have a chance the point is her divorce from MGM proved at least one thing about the movie industry which is you can be an A student you can do what you're told and make a lot of money but you are considered replaceable and your exit will be unceremonious thankfully Warner Brothers offer Joan a contract shortly after she left MGM she had learned important lessons though and was determined not to accept anything less than she thought she deserved or that wouldn't help grow her career so for two years Joan turned down every role Warner Brothers offered her claiming of the scripts weren't up to par from 1943 to 1945 Joan made only one brief appearance and film a cameo as herself in Hollywood Canteen a two-year absence could seriously have been career suicide at a time when stars could make three films a year a Joan bided her time and waited for the right thing to come along and it did a highly sanitized adaptation of James and Caine's novel Mildred Pierce was circling the Warner Brothers law it's hard to pin down who exactly was offered what or rejected the role and when accounts vary but it seems everyone was considered from Betty Davis to Ida Lupino to Barbara Stanwyck who director Michael Curtiz allegedly preferred but eventually Joan found out about it and in typical Crawford fashion she decided the role was hers for the taking she reluctantly conducted a screen test for a skeptical kirti's and won him over and the role Mildred Pierce tells the story of a working-class woman who begins a thriving business after her husband leaves her for another woman as her business succeeds she must learn to juggle the demands of her spoiled daughter and the men in her life soon everything unravels into a mystery of deception and betrayal it's easy to understand why Joan wanted this role and what kirti's must have seen in that screen test as film scholar Greg Garrett noted quote Crawford was known for the vitality and almost masculine Drive she displayed on-screen in many ways Mildred Pierce was a logical continuation and quote Mildred energy brains ambition and ruthlessness harnessed Crawford's ambition like an oil strike still the film made an important departure from the rags to riches trope of Crawford's earlier roles as June sochan notes the poor but lovely woman not only reached the peaks of success but also experienced the depths of failure Mildred Pierce combines the characteristics of a woman's film from the 1930s with unmistakably noir elements high contrast cinematography flashbacks and of course murder Ethan Morden called it quote an apotheosis of Crawford's MGM cinderella's in the dark disquiet of Warner's film noir end quote once again Joan found a role with audience identification Mildred Pierce was released in fall 1945 just as soldiers were coming home from the war and women faced a return to domesticity after an unprecedented level of Independence Mildred Pierce sends about as mixed messages about women and work as real women actually felts back then on the one hand we admire Mildred for building a successful chain of restaurants all by herself and on the other hand Mildred's inability to effectively manage her family condemns her work as an unnecessary distraction in a society that as sochan notes quote wanted to return to normalcy to the status quo ante bellum Mildred Pierce captures the tension in enjoying and feeling guilty about independence than the ultimate acknowledgment that women had to return to the home Mildred Pierce performed really well at the box office earning over five million dollars helped in no small measure by its resonance with female audiences and by the fact of Jones return Jones performance was well reviewed as well and critics took note of her darker turn that spring the Best Actress category red like a real who's who of Academy favorites of the 1940s the previous year's winner Ingrid Bergman received her third nomination for the bells of st. Mary's 1944 winner Jennifer Jones received her third nomination for love letters and of course there was 1943 winner greer garson with her sixth nomination for the valley of decision Joan and Jean Tierney nominated for leave her to heaven both received their first nominations although Jones had a very different connotation Jean was relatively new so a first nomination reads pretty normal but it seems strange that this was Joan's first after 20 years in the business and given her popularity Joan also had a good 15 years on Jean we think of age as a barrier to success for women now but consider that Joan's nomination for Mildred Pierce marks the only time in the 1940s that a woman in her 40s won Best Actress ironically she owed her win in part to her age the very elements that made her performance great had roots in real learned experiences the ups and downs of professional success and let's say complicated mother-daughter relationships significantly the discourse surrounding her nomination focused primarily on her staying power and longevity Ann about time sentimental kind of conversation they praised her hard determined work and claimed it had gone under appreciated by her studio Mildred Pierce was a comeback not just from two years away from the screen but also from MGM's mismanagement of her career Joan famously did not attend the Oscars claiming that she was too ill to go was she sick maybe it seems more likely that to an extreme perfectionist like Joan the potential embarrassment of not winning or the anxiety of giving an acceptance speech overwhelmed the desire to be there and for a long time Joan believed she'd never win an Oscar that MGM had too much political power and didn't want it to happen and history would have told her she was right during her time there MGM funneled most of its awards attention to Norma Shearer Louise Reiner and Greer Garson but Warner Brothers mounted a full campaign for her and so finally with studio backing the perfect narrative a box-office hit audience resonance and 20 years in the business she won when her name was announced Michael Cortese accepted it on her behalf then personally delivered the statue to her at home of course with a photographer in tow Rob Nixon wrote quote winning the Academy Award on her first nomination brought new respect for the actress who had clawed her way to the top and put her back in the category of major stars unquote from flapper to shopgirl to clotheshorse joan reinvented herself again with Mildred Pierce it revived and launched a new phase in her career as a noble middle aged career woman in wash melodramas exploring desire and possessiveness the late 1940s saw many of Joan's greatest performances in films like humoresque Daisy Kenyon and possessed she was nominated for Oscars two more times at that point very few actresses had lasted from the silent era and even fewer lasted and had the attention of the Academy so it's kind of remarkable to consider that Joan's relevance lasted into the 1950s and then revived again in the 60s with whatever happened to Baby Jane James Kane summarized Joan's story best for two years Joan Crawford gave up her security and studied scripts she found a great story at last and an Oscar more than many of her peers Joan understood and reflected to climb to the top on screen and in real life the need to earn respect she strategically created her own image and career taking enormous risks and eventually becoming one of the most remembered stars of the classic era of course some of this has to do with the camp element that I talked about at the beginning of this episode but I think by contextualizing her career especially her early work and reframing Joan in the context of her screen persona we get a more nuanced understanding of who she was and why she was important this is a woman Molly Haskell called about as wobbly is the Statue of Liberty so there's a lot more to it than just eyebrows [Music]

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 451,661

Keywords: joan crawford, oscar, best actress, mildred pierce, joan crawford interview, mgm, bette davis, feud, mommie dearest, eyebrows, daisy kenyon, whatever happened to baby jane, greer garson, ingrid bergman, grand hotel, essay, 1946, sadie mckee, possessed, humoresque, the great depression, 1930s, 1940s, academy awards

Id: x1b1HkWF5VA

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018